World Happiness Report 2026
worldhappiness.report
worldhappiness.report
An ambitious CEO moves to a small coastal town, living right on the beach to "optimize his lifestyle." Every evening, he sees a local fisherman sitting on his deck, playing guitar and watching the sunset with his family.
After a week, the CEO approaches the fisherman and says, "You know, if you spent less time playing guitar and more time fishing, you could buy a second boat."
The fisherman asks, "Why would I do that?"
"To catch more fish, sell them, and buy a whole fleet! Then you'd be rich," says the CEO.
"And then?" asks the fisherman.
"Then you could retire, move to a quiet beach, and play guitar all evening!"
The fisherman smiles and says, "What do you think I'm doing right now, while you're trying to figure out the ROI on my hobby?"
That even the sword of warring enemies might gain."
2 At any rate, Pyrrhus used to say that more cities had been won for him by the eloquence of Cineas than by his own arms; and he continued to hold Cineas in especial honour and to demand his services. It was this Cineas, then, who, seeing that Pyrrhus was eagerly preparing an expedition at this time to Italy, and finding him at leisure for the moment, drew him into the following discourse. "The Romans, O Pyrrhus, are said to be good fighters, and to be rulers of many warlike nations; if, then, Heaven should permit us to conquer these men, how should we use our victory?" 3 And Pyrrhus said: "Thy question, O Cineas, really needs no answer; the Romans once conquered, there is neither barbarian nor Greek city there which is a match for us, but we shall at once possess all Italy, the great size and richness and importance of which no man should know better than thyself." After a little pause, then, Cineas said: "And after taking Italy, O King, what are we to do?" 4 And Pyrrhus, not yet perceiving his intention, replied: "Sicily is near, and holds out her hands to us, an island abounding in wealth and men, and very easy to capture, for all is faction there, her cities have no government, and demagogues are rampant now that Agathocles is gone." "What thou sayest," replied Cineas, "is probably true; but will our expedition stop with the taking of Sicily?" 5 "Heaven grant us," said Pyrrhus, p389 "victory and success so far; and we will make these contests but the preliminaries of great enterprises. For who could keep his hands off Libya, or Carthage, when that city got within his reach, a city which Agathocles, slipping stealthily out of Syracuse and crossing the sea with a few ships, narrowly missed taking? And when we have become masters here, no one of the enemies who now treat us with scorn will offer further resistance; there is no need of saying that." 6 "None whatever," said Cineas, "for it is plain that with so great a power we shall be able to recover Macedonia and rule Greece securely. But when we have got everything subject to us, what are we going to do?" Then Pyrrhus smiled upon him and said: "We shall be much at ease, and we'll drink bumpers, my good man, every day, and we'll gladden one another's hearts with confidential talks." 7 And now that Cineas had brought Pyrrhus to this point in the argument, he said: "Then what stands in our way now if we want to drink bumpers and while away the time with one another? Surely this privilege is ours already, and we have at hand, without taking any trouble, those things to which we hope to attain by bloodshed and great toils and perils, after doing much harm to others and suffering much ourselves."
8 By this reasoning of Cineas Pyrrhus was more troubled than he was converted; he saw plainly what great happiness he was leaving behind him, but was unable to renounce his hopes of what he eagerly desired." https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/...
Yeah that last bit is key. As MLK said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. You can't just sit at the beach, because humans are hungry animals and you're probably somewhere in that chain (Rome → Italy → Sicily → Carthage → Greece).
If you want peace, prepare for peace.
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1376114/ (1992)
The abstract: “ It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains--that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.”
There's a related sutta (MN87) with some dicussion about how love, which is generally an even more pleasent feeling than happiness, causes suffering if clung to because we are all inevitably separated from our loved ones.
"The behavioural components of happiness are less easily characterised but particular facial expressions such as 'smiling' have been noted"
"Certainly, if television soap operas in any way reflect real life, happiness is a very rare phenomenon indeed in places as far apart as Manchester, the East End of London and Australia. Interestingly, despite all the uncertainty about the epidemiology of happiness, there is some evidence that it is unevenly distributed amongst the social classes: individuals in the higher socio-economic groupings generally report greater positive affect which may reflect the fact that they are more frequently exposed to environmental risk factors for happiness."
...pretty hilarious if you ask me :)
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?
Quantifiable example: most recent jobs report we lost 100k+ full time jobs. Biggest job less since COVID. Or the fact our increase in GDP per capita is the (second?) worst in the OECD in the last 10 years. Worse than Japan, Italy, the UK and all the other laggards...
What healthcare access? My family has had to go abroad for surgeries twice in the last 3 years because there's no access to healthcare here...
And housing prices? My sister bought a mansion in Texas for less than a condo here.
Arguably these two data points are even worse for Canada. Either way our ranking is dropping.
That said, for most people, going abroad for surgery or to buy a home is not an option.
For example, declining productivity (which is what GDP per capita is) means a worse house price/income ratio, ie. worse affordability.
And today's Canadians aren't that great at being social: "In 1986, about one in two Canadians saw their friends on an average day. Now, only about one in five do." — https://www.cbc.ca/radio/nowornever/maintain-friendship-conn...
Research suggests it, but it does not show it. Psychological research is notoriously unscientific, with most studies not even being replicable because humans are extremely complex and it's basically impossible to design any kind of methodology that concretely controls for all variables, all the more so when we have things like 'ethics' that make it even harder to do controlled resaerch.
It is absolutely possible to be happy without deep social connection. I am an absolute misanthrope, I seriously hate every one of you bastards, but I'm pretty damn happy. The key to my happiness is that I live a comfortable life and have the freedom to spend it creating (and consuming) things I love - art, music, games, software. If I had to instead spend my days labouring on a farm, if I didn't have indoor plumbing and air conditioning, didn't have access to healthcare and stability and security, etc. I would be absolutely miserable. My happiness is only possible due to the great economic conditions and sensible policies of my country.
Well, of course it is. No matter what you think it is that brings happiness to the general population, there will be at least someone who doesn't find happiness in it. There are always outliers.
> If I had to instead spend my days labouring on a farm
Farms are where you find the intersection of all cool tech. I have to wonder how someone who enjoys creating and consuming software would dislike working on a farm. But to each their own.
I'm not convinced I'm that much of an outlier psychologically, though; I think only my prosperous conditions are themselves a global outlier. I believe that if you gave most people the privilege I have, of having just enough money to pursue the things they love without doing work they don't enjoy, without worrying about being able to afford food, shelter, or medical bills, they would be happy too, with or without social connections.
> Farms are where you find the intersection of all cool tech. I have to wonder how someone who enjoys creating and consuming software would dislike working on a farm.
I need to do intellectually stimulating work to be happy. Repetitive manual labour would drive me insane. My mental image of "labouring on a farm" there was also "poor economic conditions subsistence farming", not "industrial farm with a million dollars worth of cool machinery".
Hey, it didn't say deep positive social connection.
Perhaps your hatred is what fuels you and keeps you happy :)
And another question from a ratbastard; have you ever spend a significant time labouring on a farm, or without indoor plumbing and/or air conditioning?
(Canada losing to a USA team made mainly of Canadians is another issue entirely ...)
The Missing Middle podcast went into this in a recent episode, and it's age-dependent: older folks are happier (i.e., they have purchased homes), while younger folks are less happy (cost of living). We Canadians basically have age-dependent wealth-class nowadays.
While the government removes all the benefits boomers and Gen X got to use to build their wealth, ensuring the ladder is firmly pulled up behind them.
The ladder metaphor isn't the worst.
Like, if there is no consensus on what the scale means the answers will be too culturaly dependend and random between individuals.
In my experience doing surveys "was the food good?" after say a conference is way easiee to interpret than some scale answers.
If the society/culture you are living within. Is well off, but swamped with cravings that it could be better. Then you are less happy.
This study isn't trying to measure how 'materially well off you are', it is happiness. So if you are un-satisfied even with your big house, and un-happy, that still says something.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1--c2r8HE
They link to their sources:
* https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vFO-3Sq5-rorCWBIKwuR-Spk...
Specifically the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale ("Cantril Ladder") is used:
* https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/2/9/what-is-cantril...
* https://news.gallup.com/poll/122453/understanding-gallup-use...
It's been around since 1965, so it's presumably been studied a lot and the pros and cons of it explored in the literature.
Denmark has ranked as one of the happiest countries for years running, but, Dane here, we hoover up antidepressants like it was our breakfast. There are also deep cultural factors at play that make Danes more likely to mask that everything is fine when it isn't. We have an extremely high incidence of cheating on our partners, which, surprise, comes from a talent for deception, both toward self and others, and we are extremely emotionally avoidant, which results in our nationally very high rate of alcohol consumption and alcoholism.
These happiness indexes are a complete sham and don't observe the full spectrum that goes into how cultures present themselves versus lived reality.
Is somebody who uses antidepressants to successfully improve their mood not happy? The question is not "would you be happy if you were unmedicated?"
I'd argue it's likelier that people are more informed about their absolute position globally. Any screen gets you the mental image of the top of the ladder. So happy people would end up scoring themselves low, because there's a globalized vision of wealth nowadays.
Besides there's a difference in life self-evaluation and experienced happiness, so the report really is a misnomer.
Rather, social media mis-use is a symptom of young people having a lack of things like "third spaces" to go to to socialize at, of not having meaningful work or volunteer opportunities, of lacking certain other things that may have existed in the past.
Social media offers a new engaging experiment that fills the void of some of these things that don't exist elsewhere otherwise but doesn't act as an equivalent replacement
The original kind was genuinely connecting people and adding value. The current one is in effect isolating and driving people and groups apart.
Luckily, the original kind did not vanish. I find a lot of joy hanging out on the fediverse. I spend far less time on it than what I did on Twitter of FB back when I still had accounts there, but that is a good sign.
Social media is too generous term to use when describing products from Meta, TikTok, Snap, X etc. It is an ad platform that also, occasionality, shows you what your friends are up to.
We should come up with a better term than 'social media' when describing platforms that has reached the last stage of enshitification.
I see all kinds of active third spaces, but never any young people in them.
I get that it is hard to bootstrap now. Trying to convince a 20 year old that they should hang out with a 70 year old to get the ball rolling for more 20 year olds to show up is not an easy sell, but when I was 20 (just before the emergence of social media) these same third spaces were full of people of all ages. It was bootstrapped once upon a time.
Why did the young people stop coming?
The kids aren’t dumb or uninteresting or anything like that, they are just plain addicted to phones. The rare volunteer kid that puts 100% effort in is usually a homeschool type with no electronic devices or someone in the top 1% of their class or something like that.
The attention economy is real, and it’s dominated by phones and by those that were born in it.
I like this framing of social media use in the same terms as drug use. There are significant risks to this activity that so many people are ambivalent toward. Depression is not a condition you want to have, and here's this activity that causes it (or at least significantly contributes to it). And yet, so many persist!
Israel for example seems like a place that would be fairly unhappy right now given world events, but they rank quite highly.
Saudi Arabia also sticks out as unexpected. It seems in the media I hear about their government being quite oppressive (especially against women), so seeing them just above the US is surprising.
I think it's now more about gaining power as a nation and not being at the mercy of those who seek to destroy us.
No it does not. It's one question without regard to GDP, life expectancy or anything else.
Israel I think is similar to Costa Rica in that whatever problems Israelis have, they look around at their neighbors and realize how much worse it could be.
I haven't travelled there but I grew up in Poland and still visit. US feels very capitalistic to me. I feel the pace is slower in Poland. In US I feel the need to produce. Might be just me.
Tell the girls that housing will be unobtainable and they start worrying; tell the boys and they laugh. Not saying it's the case (and it's likely that the cause is more social than financial) but it could be.
Even if it is the biggest drop it is not the only drop.
But the question is what is it that the teenage girls are seeing that the rest of us are slowly catching up in realizing? The most popular answer is the current social media landscape is creating unhappiness in them (and ultimately the rest of us), but that's the answer given for all woes these days...
Again, it's probably not housing or cost of living. While it is fair to say that teenage girls are not completely removed for that, they're generally not the ones who have to actually face it head on, and these have been considered pressing issues in Canada since before those teenage girls were born! If that made people unhappy, they'd have been unhappy for a long time already.
Not using any VPN or proxy, no CF DNS, nothing like that.